


honey and gold for the taking

by sailorjupiter (valkyrierising)



Category: Kamen Rider Build
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fake Science, Gen, Introspection, Series Spoilers, Sharing a Body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 01:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15474882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyrierising/pseuds/sailorjupiter
Summary: There are some days she wishes for sleep, like deep sleep and not the fatigue that’s plagued her for so long - it’s hilarious really, sleep is the one constant she’s had in her life. A good part of her life was spent unconscious, lodging a bone deep exhaustion she couldn’t shake even though she has tried to rid herself of it.





	honey and gold for the taking

**Author's Note:**

> just assume entire series spoilers if you're not caught up! title comes from shells 'jagwar.'

There are some days she wishes for sleep, like deep sleep and not the fatigue that’s plagued her for so long - it’s hilarious really, sleep is the one constant she’s had in her life. A good part of her life was spent unconscious, lodging a bone deep exhaustion she couldn’t shake even though she has _tried_  to rid herself of it.

 

Everything feels like it’s not real.

 

The last thing she remembers in startling clarity is a field trip. It’s the clearest picture she has of her childhood. There’s other things she should be able to remember: the first time she was ever taken to an amusement park, the first time she went to the ocean, her first few birthdays. Should is the operative word. A lot of her early memories are hazy, the barest hints teasing the edge of her mind.  

 

_The bracelet attaches to her while she’s lingering behind. She’s focused on the unnatural vice like clasp it has on her, looking down instead of looking out for the museum guide looking for her. She stayed behind to look at the Mars section; she wanted to see what her father was doing. He was a spaceman, seeing the whole universe. She just wanted to see what he saw. The bracelet attaching itself makes her look down instead of turning to see the guards coming in. When she feels the cool metal on her skin, she sees the shine and a flash before she passes out._

 

Dreamless and devoid is the best descriptor of where she was, where all she had where memories of her mother and her father before he went to Mars. The mind takes old memories and images and repurposes them into new images, she thinks she overhears the doctors say once. Because there was nothing in her mind anymore, she made new ones. A desolate wasteland of dirt, an old tower, and a swirling tornado of red dust, it was nothing she would know about. Flashes of a throne, and the vague feeling of unease that permeates her entire being.

And a part of all her dreams was a voice. It whispers to her, feminine and old. Not in age but in essence - like the deepest part of the earth lived and spoke to her.

 

“What are you?” She asks.  

 

“I am the last of the Martians who remain, the Queen of Mars.”

 

She could rule out her mother because she couldn’t remember much of her even in her sleep, but she knew that she was there when she was younger, gone by the time she woke up. She is the mystery that dominates her life after the coma, where she went, if she was okay, if she even missed her.  The voice shared nothing with her mother, but her presence was a comfort nevertheless, who helps make new dreams for her about an old kingdom and an older threat that haunted the kingdom. Even though she whispered things she could never understand, struck her with a sense of fear, she still chased after her, wanting to hear the story about the queen driven out of her own kingdom by a madman. It’s always been a fairytale with a bad ending, one that she wants to now. Oddly, it feels a lot like a story someone once told her.

 

The entity resides within her and guides her in a way. But she doesn’t realize that until much later, when Sawa gives her a look of distress as she comes to, that something else has been with her for a while.

 

She sees, clearly for the first time in her time with the Queen of Mars, an endless valley of the finest crystal-like sand. _This was mine, the voice says. It will be mine again._

 

 

* * *

 

 

She wakes years later, unsure of what’s occurred. A coma, they tell her. Her father sits besides her, a newspaper in hand staring at her. It wouldn’t be remarkable if the last thing she didn’t remember was he was sent to Mars and she had just been at the museum. She blinks, feeling like she’d come from underwater. Her father looks at her, as if he didn’t recognize her, before his eyes refocus on her. Rubbing at her eyes with her palms, she sees an empty throne room for a second before she feels the tube stuck to her hand. Then, she notices there’s a light blinking in her room and footsteps rushing by her door.

 

“I- what happened?” She asks.

The timing’s all off. He looks like he always has, a little bit tired but smiling. But he is here, when he is supposed to be out in space. Her mother is nowhere to be found, which isn’t unexpected, but she hoped she would be there. Her dad looks elated, jumping up and asks what’s going on. The doctors swarm inside, checking the monitors around her, as she yawns to take the cotton-like feeling out of her mouth.

 

“Do you remember anything?” The lead doctor, a woman with a silver streak in her dark hair, asks.

 

“Her vitals are normal, they haven’t spiked or plateaued. We’ll run some blood tests to be sure,” someone else says.

 

“I don’t know,” she responds. “Why am I here? Where is here?”

 

“You’re at the hospital,” the doctor supplies. “You’ve been in a coma for seven years Misora.”

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing’s changed but you were comatose. We weren’t sure you were going to wake up.”

 

“Oh,” is all she can say. Her dad grasps her hand as the doctors walk around. _Seven years? She’d only turned around for a few seconds._  It feels wrong to be told she’d been asleep for seven years, to wake up with her dad there but no mother, surrounded by strangers who know more about her than she knows of herself.

 

“Miss? Are you sure there’s nothing you can’t remember?”

 

“Nothing.” Her dad shields her. She is grateful he is back, even if for some uncertain reason she feels awkward around him. She chalks it to comatose blues, homesickness - it’s disregarded in any case. She has her father back and she’s no longer asleep, and that’s enough. But when they’re together, when she is asleep, she can feel the being restless in their dreams.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“I need you to do something for me,” her dad asks when she wakes up. He presses a small bottle, probably no bigger than the size of her finger but bigger, into her hand and tells her if she sees anything.

 

“What would I see?”

 

“The key to saving the world,” he smiles at her. She raises her eyebrows a little but does as he asks, eyes the bottle. She holds it up to her face, holds it to the light. A dazzling ray of light crosses her eyesight and she sees a tower that goes to the heavens, a dust cloud surrounding it.

 

_Home,” Vernage purrs._

 

She drops the bottle, slumps onto the floor.

 

_“I want my kingdom back,” Vernage shouts. She’s surrounded by orderlies, and she knows something’s off, but she is filled with indescribable horror and sadness. “This was his doing,” she roars. “He destroyed our home.” One of the orderlies is knocked aside, a swirl of gold dust coming out from her hand. Someone else plunges a needle into her neck, slumping to the floor. “Find the traitor,” she mutters._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Just try again,” he pressures her. This man in front of her isn’t her father. He’s a little bit too focused on the bottle and not on the fact that it makes her dizzy and tired. It scares her, seeing things that aren’t supposed to be there. More time leaves her.

 

“I don’t like it,” she states, placing the bottle down. He grabs it back, presses it into her hand and shakes his head. Something about the way he asks sets her on edge.

 

“It’s okay! Just think of happy things. It’s fine to see those things. Your mind is just playing tricks, picks up what you heard when you were asleep all that time.”

 

“Fine,” she huffs, shaking the bottle in her hand. Happy things, she tells herself.

 

 _This time the tower is standing, and there’s no red dust storms, but the clearest sky.  The tower doesn’t look like it’s crumbling, but rather as if it’s being rebuilt, higher and higher. A mosaic of stones that glint in the light, a deep shade of ruby. Flowers bloom up from beside the path, growing to her knees. This is a place she would like to visit._  

 

“ _This is my home,” Vernage says as she hits the bed._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The road from the hospital to the café is fuzzy. Days going missing isn’t new to her anymore, an accustomed habit, but the absence of memory startles her. It’s not like she had much besides the ones with her dad and her mom, but still.  

 

The Sky-Wall happens, as the Pandora box is opened. She tilts her head; the box sounds familiar as does the wall. Everything is still the same but it’s all different. Like someone moved everything an inch to the left. The wall wasn’t there. The intercoms crackle loudly to test air sirens. The billboards are screens and show video through the streets, about the threat of war. This place is different from where she grew up. She holds her father’s hand tighter as they walk back home.

 

The place he takes her too isn’t the place where she grew up but a café. It’s a small place, until they go inside and there’s hole right before stairs. Inside, there’s a large space underground that’s empty.

 

It takes weeks for her to catch up to everything she has missed.

 

Everything overwhelms.

 

The streets are better than she recalls. They don’t trip her up like they used to. The intercom is in all the boroughs as well. She gets flashes of an old dirt road, with the finest gems making up the path. It’s fleeting and strikes her the most when she’s walking as the sun sets. The road flashes from the streets of Touto to a winding road to a palace, obscured by dust storms and a red storm.

 

 _Not home, not our world, not my palace. It could be_. She shakes her head, gives herself a smack for emphasis.

 

She stops going out for a little.  

 

Her dad fixes the cafe while they’re there, builds the giant laboratory and a wall to separate her room from the lab. His investment in the work sometimes keeps her away because she can’t begin to understand what he’s working on. She still offers to help but he waves her off.

 

“What are we doing?"

 

“Building something to protect the world.”

  
“What are we protecting ourselves from? Isn’t that what the wall is for?”

 

“Kind of? This will change everything,” he says, coming up the stairs to try out what she made. He claps his hands together, startling her slightly.  When he turns to her, he looks like someone else. The path appears, as does the crumbling tower, sending shivers down her spine. She ignores it, focuses back on serving them lunch.

 

When she is resting in her bed after, Vernage speaks to her .

  
_“Child,” Vernage begins. “What troubles you.”_

 

“He….he scares me sometimes,” she’ll whisper.

 

_“Why does he scare you?”_

 

“Because I don’t know him. There are times when there’s something… not right with him. Like...his eyes don’t look the same when he’s tired.”

 

 _“It is best to be on your guard then, child. Those we trust does not mean they will honor that trust.”_ She nods in the empty darkness of the room, curling around the pillow she has in the bed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The thing about being comatose for seven years is she can’t sleep as much anymore. She wants to, hoping that one day when she sleeps she’ll wake up to her mother with her father are there like it was before. There are many nights after the hospital spent tossing and turning, always thinking about her mother. Dad says she used to be an actress, the most beautiful lady when he met her. She channel surfs, stopping on any of the movies to see if the older actresses bear a resemblance to her mother. It’s useless, because she can’t quite remember how her mother looks like. Dark hair, maybe green eyes? She throws the remote in frustration, picks up the abandoned book by her bed.

 

She ties her hair back, brings her materials out and gets the stand to hold her camera. Boredom and isolation leads her to be more inventive, and it’s not like anything can happen to her, considering both her and dad fell off the face of the world. The last two months have almost driven her mad, she creates Miitan because she likes to think she thinks she could be if she ever gets to go out. She’s grasping at straws, hoping that maybe if her mother is out there, she’ll see her videos and come back to their family.

 

_“You do this..idol business. You are worshipped, like me?” Vernage asks when she turns the camera off._

 

“Not really? I just try to bring a little happiness into people’s lives.” If she didn’t know any better, she’d have though Vernage snorted. Putting everything away, she sits on the floor.

 

_“I am your sister, your mother, your ruler and your goddess. What have you a need for an absent mother anyway?”_

 

“I have a right to know where she is,” she responds, pulling her hair out of the ponytail. “Just because she isn’t here doesn’t mean I can’t know where she is.

 

_"But she has been...gone for years. The only person with you is a man, a father you call him who looks after you. What do you need her for?”_

 

“You don’t stop loving someone just because they left. It doesn’t disappear. Especially if it’s your mother. I deserve to know where she is. If she’s even alive. If she’s thought of me. Didn’t you have a mother?”

 

_“Martians have different reproductive systems than that of humans. Genetic relations don’t occur naturally. We come into existence from the planet, and we forge our families through allegiances._

 

“Well here, we have those biological. Someone gives life to you. But we can also pick our families, like you can sometimes pick who becomes one which is called adoption.”

 

_“Humans are strange. You have me, Misora Isurugi. I could make you a queen and leave behind these constraints._

 

“I just want my mother,” she says, settling onto the floor. “I just want to see her again.” Vernage harrumphs in her head, disappears when her heads cocks upon hearing the café door shut and the sound of two men downstairs.

 

She hides when he is brought in. They talk upstairs in a louder volume that she can catch parts of phrases. He says he doesn’t remember anything before that day, that he was in the rain for who knows how long. His name is Sento Kiryuu and he’s kind of like her.  

 

He’s really tall when he comes down into the lab area, she notes.

 

They don’t actually meet until two weeks later, because she does her best to avoid him and there’s this one book series she spends her time reading and he’s never left that half-finished chamber if the sound of power-drills is anything to go by. The chamber nears completion and the bracelet tightens instinctively. She brings her bowl of ramen and her phone as he finished the top part of the chamber. She slurps, watching as he places the goggles on top of his head and tilts his head at her.

 

“You’re the owner’s daughter, right?” He asks. She nods slowly, not breaking eye contact. “I’m Sento.”

 

“I know.”

 

“And you are?’

 

“Misora. The daughter.”

 

“Why haven’t I seen you around before now?”

  
“I’m very good at not being found,” she punctuates with a slurp of noodle. “What is this?”

 

“Hope for the future. We’re doing something, project what’d he call it?”

  
“Build?” She puts her chopsticks down.

 

“That one,” he snaps his finger. “You’re helping too aren’t you?”

 

“That depends on do I get paid?’

 

“You’re a little gremlin,” he says, shocked. She smirks a little, watching as he exhales and walks towards the computer, hears many beeps as he taps out on the keyboard. “Are you going to help or not?”  

 

She drops her ramen bowl onto the floor, clattering as she stands to walk to the chamber; it’s roomier than she expected. He throws a bottle at her as she turns, clearing her throat in annoyance before she walks in. The light inside is red, not too dark, and the door is closed in after her. There’s an door outside of the building that he put the bottles in while she goes inside. She sees the the image of the shining tower again. The machine dings like a microwave, green light flooding instead and she finds herself on the edge of sleep as she steps out. She pushes past him to her bed and falls down, into an exhaustion where she can’t even remember what she dreamt.

 

+

 

It takes a little to get used to him. He’s so...bubbly. It grates on her as she dodges him when she can. It feels upsetting that he’s not been phased by waking up with no memory. She hadn’t been like that when she got out of her coma, confusion and uncertainty plaguing her. She has no driving purpose like he does, all she has are strange visions of an old kingdom. He taps on her wall lightly, distracting her from her wandering thoughts.

 

“I’m not invalid,” she snaps back, throwing her covers off.

 

“I didn’t say you were,” he replies. “Do you hate me?” He asks as she grabs her robe from the side.

 

“What? Why?”

 

“If you don’t want me here, I’m sure I can talk to your dad and we can figure something else. If you have a problem with me, I hope you’re not feeling uncomfortable.”

 

“It’s not about the stupid bottles,” she sighs. “It’s you.”

 

“That doesn’t sound any better,” he says, sitting down on the chair in her room.

 

“It’s not you _you_ but why you’re doing this. You have….something to do. I’ve been stuck in here this entire time. I can’t do anything besides work on these bottles. I can’t go outside because my dad doesn’t want me out. I don’t have anything besides old memories and those are barely helpful. You’re a scientist at least and it’s just - I feel like I can’t do anything useful. Dad says this is for the greater good or whatever but I don’t know what _I_ am doing. I just don’t know.”

 

“It’s the only thing I can do now given there’s not a lot,” he taps at his head, “I’ve got with me.”

 

Sento looks at her and stands, motions her to follow. The equation on the board means nothing to her, that she cuts him a look and he begins to explain. “If we do this right, your work will purify this bottle and help me with this suit. Think of it like….the battery you put into a remote. You’re like my battery.”

 

She stares, shaking the bottle in her hand before chucking it at Sento and moving to the machine.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Somehow, she finds herself getting used to Sento. He’s obscenely smart - he knows things she can’t begin to understand. The board her dad set up in the beginning has dozens of equations working that he works with Sento, perfecting the formula after a few false starts deplete the bottles after one use. His smiles are so bright they make her day a little bit better. Her dad spends a lot of time with him, talking about the equations he scribbles on the board that she barely comprehends, but he spends time with her and explains almost everything in terms she can get. She always moves to the sound of his voice even when she’s napping. Even though he knows nothing about himself, he’s tries to do something. It makes her want to do something in return.  He’s full of himself though, and it’s almost funny if he didn’t immediately follow up with a know-it-all tone. Still. She can’t stop herself from being annoying in return. They’re both in the dark, as he is also finding things about himself. She tries to search for her mother with Miitan, thinking of question that could be of use, and what the dreams mean. She chooses instead to focus on something she can manage, the bottles to stop the Smash sightings that have been steadily increasingly.

 

She makes him stop his equation ramblings to say it again in regular people speak. He rolls his eyes but erases part of the board, sets an area to break down the equation into something more doable and begins his explanation again.

 

“The rider system is a protector,” he begins, putting both of her hands under her chin while he points to the far end of the board.

 

He feels like a friend.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The system goes: he makes an equation, she goes into the booth, and out comes a bottle for him. He’s the masked rider of Touto and only she, her father, and Sento know this secret. So many broadcasts play the daily news and the impending threat of war - most people don’t think anything will come of it, but she feels in her bones something coming. It’s a never-ending sensation of doom that locks her up and makes her worried.

 

“Nothing can happen,” Sento says one day as she’s sitting beside him. Her hands lock onto the desk, gripping it as they go through equations that she surprisingly gets. It’s not _her_ that gets it though, but the other thing inside that scans the computer and realizes the equation is similar to something that her Martian scholars knew of.

 

“How are you so sure?”

  
“Because I’m here.”

 

“That’s pride,” she shoots back. He inhales and continues working as she gets her phone out. She spaces as she scrolls down her feed.

 

_Inside, Vernage rolls around. She likes Sento. Here is a man noble in his pursuit of science - he means well, even though the other girl has blocked out the images of her crumbling kingdom. She allows him to purify the bottles because he means well, and is excited about the work, about figuring the right solution to a troublesome problem. Perfecting the bottles is something she can allow, because even though the bottles purified will mean Evolto will return. However, it’ll also mean that Sento is ready to fight him and that’s what she needs of champions. Fighters, in spite of the odds, who seek justice. He could have been a part of her scholars in another lifetime. Her own memory isn’t quite as fragmented as her host’s are, but the girl is surprisingly resilient that she is able to ignore her warnings. She tuts those are signs. She doesn’t sense Evolto just yet, so maybe the Earthlings will prevail where she failed._

 

She blinks, returns back to the present where she sits beside Sento, her fingers scrolling to last week’s feed as exhaustion creeps back into her. She moves to stand but shakes as she does so, grasping onto his shoulder.

 

“I guess it is is pride,” he shakes his head, standing with her. “But it doesn’t matter because it’s not pride in the way that I’m doing this for myself. I’m doing it for the world, in that I have to be sure I’m doing the right thing. Knowing that we can be better, to protect our families.” Keeping her standing, he guides her to the bed. “I can’t remember my old family, but I can protect my new one.”

 

She squeezes his hand in return and sleeps.

 

She dreams about beings bathed in light she can’t quite see, creating something in the tower that goes to the sky. A bright light encompasses everything, as does the sound of faint ‘ooh’s’ from the beings beside her. Mars was ahead of what everyone expected. She feels a pulse come down from the ceiling, sending her back into her own mindscape.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He goes out often, captures Smash for their essence. The Smash make her sad at the beginning, feeling like things she once knew. Ridiculous, considering she never leaves the café and they’re causing danger. But there is something that they show her when she purifies them, a lot of screaming and the ceiling of the tower collapsing on them within the Martian tower. She learns to block those images from her head, thinks of everything else, like her father teaching her to read, or the faint memory of her mother pushing her on the swing, or the smile Sento gives her when she gets an equation he writes. She passes out immediately after the purification process far more frequently now, learns how to get to her bed in under ten seconds.

 

The process never fails to shake her to her core, but she continues because she wants to help in whatever way she can. She always wanted someone else like her, like a sibling to go with her parents. It was silly but something she kept in the back of her mind. Sento, for all his annoyances, looks after her in little ways and treats her like his sister. Like they’re family.

 

Sento is just so damned trustworthy and optimistic. He’s like one of the heroes in the books she reads, giving so much of himself in return for a little. He works here, enlists her help and explains when he can. He’s the masked rider of  Touto, but really, he’s a good man helping people at a big risk to himself. He gives her back a little bit of the hope stolen from her as she slept, that the world she woke up to wasn’t a permanent fixture. It makes her unspoken promise to help him that much more of a drive to keep purifying even though she wishes to unsee things. He even makes her train with her when she isn’t asleep, but that’s not as frequent as it could be. If he asked, she would be a rider with him to watch his back.

 

+

 

Sento drags in a scowling man one day, annoyed and snapping. Something about him looks familiar to her that she can’t place. Blinking sleep from her eyes when she sees him, she feels something lock inside of her about him. Everything feels right for a second.

 

 _“He’s ours,”_   Vernage says. She blinks, refocuses her attention on the man. ‘Him?’ She asks herself. ‘I don’t even know him.’

 

_“You will.”_

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It turns out Banjou Ryuga’s a pain in the ass.  He’s also a wanted man. That’s what feels familiar about him; she’d seen him on the news multiple times that he was a dangerous fugitive. She goes by Sento when he shows up, watches as he pushes him into the laboratory area and keeps him there.

 

“Is it safe to trust him?”

 

Sento shrugs. “Mostly.”

 

“That’s the least helpful answer,” she scowls.

 

“He’s not what the news says he is,” he waves her off. “Trust me. He doesn’t seem like he’s a dangerous criminal. Someone is framing him.”

 

“And isn’t that dangerous for you? Protecting him even when the news all think he’s a criminal? And if he is being framed, isn’t the person who’s after him going to come after you too?”

 

“I’m the masked rider,” he smiles as he keeps tapping at the computer. She makes a noise of annoyance, slaps the back of his head. It irritates her, to see Sento do something so dangerous. He’s powerful, yes, but he’s not invincible. He comes back from Smash fights quicker, with less injuries, but lately the Smash have gotten stronger too. He’s no longer able to get the job done as quick as he used to three months ago. He yelps in response, smacking at the air as she pulls her own hand back

 

“I’ve got this,” he says, rubbing the back of his head. “You have to trust me.”

 

“I trust you, I just also worry. You better be right about this,” she says, going back to her room because she feels another round of lightheadedness strike.

 

Vernage is awake, and she’s angling for her to look into the lab area. _‘I know him, show him to me.’_

 

“We’re not,” she snaps back.

 

_‘He belongs to me. Us.’_

 

“What are you even saying?” She mutters as she rearranges the blanket on the bed around her.

 

_‘You’ll know him,’ she whispers._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He’s annoying. He paces all through the laboratory like one of the alley cats she sees outside the café, constantly moving. It’s incredible really, he’ll probably wear the cement flooring with his incessant movements. He punches things too, the bag that Sento occasionally uses, echoing through the room as the chains rattle against the frame. Then sometimes, she’ll hear him tapping about through the computer rifling through Sento’s research and cursing when he reaches the parts that Sento password protects.

 

He exhausts her, on top of the work she does for the bottles.

 

 _‘I had a champion once,’_ Vernage says as she tosses in the bed. She groans, tries to muffle the voice in her head with the pillow.

 

_‘I trusted him with my life,’ she continues. ‘The revolution came when I was focused on threats outside of my system. I could have prevented it, but there were traitors in my houses. A stranger wearing the face of my guard.’_

 

“Please,” she shoves the pillow back on her face.

 

_‘I know his spirit.’_

 

She tosses her blanket in annoyance, shuffling into the next room as quietly as possible. Banjou jumps when he turns back, the punching bag swinging as he faces her.

 

He yells something while she gets a good look on him, if only to shut Vernage up. What she gets is a mixture of emotions. He does look like someone she could recognize, he’s got a handsome face that’s pretty hard to forget.

 

“What are you doing?” He stands defensively, folding and unfolding his arms.

 

“Trying to see what I should do with you,” she retorts. Vernage, in her mind, seems to be reaching out for him. As much as she could through her head.

 

_‘He doesn’t know us,’ Vernage says. ‘But I sense him. He’s further away.’_

“Obviously,” she says under her breath as Banjou goes ‘Huh?’ She shakes her head, Vernage quieting down. Banjou also quiets for a moment before he launches into a series of question she barely registers. She sits down the floor, wait as he tires himself out.

 

Even though he’s annoying, he _is_ kind of cute. For a fugitive.

 

+

 

When she realizes she can tie him up to an exposed area of the frame in the laboratory, she seizes the opportunity. Part of it is protecting him from doing something stupid, like following Sento as he goes to find Smash in the city. Another part of it is she does it see if the contact she has wrestling him towards the area will spur something of a connection. Vernage isn’t insistent upon it anymore, gets quieter even as the bottle purifying sends her to the machine at a total of four times daily - more than the usual. A spare link of chains (she really doesn’t know where Sento finds all these, with his no job, but it’s not that pressing of an issue) and her own semi competent skills of using the chains when she’s pranking Sento is what she uses on Banjou when he’s unaware. There’s something about Banjou Ryuga that calls to her, like a memory of yesterday. It’s not really her that recognizes him, knowing it’s Vernage’s connection to certain people crossing into her being. It bothers her all the same, as Vernage is within her and she is her.

Soichi’s stopped coming back to the café. He shows up in the mornings, checking on their progress of the bottles. But he is no longer in the upstairs area, sweeping the floor for customers to come in. It’s odd to her, like there’s a block in her memory for that. Everything is just not quite in her grasp - the feeling is there but the information isn’t and it bothers her.     

 

It’s a fleeting glance she catches, like the after image of a camera flash going off when she hears the chains rattling and turns to see Banjou right behind her, shouting many things but landing on ‘what’s the big idea?’ For a second, she sees him in a dragon breastplate, clad in improbably form-fitting metal armor. It disappears just as quickly as Banjou keeps yelling at her, the metal suit disappearing into the idiotic saying purple shirt he loves.

 

“To keep you safe,” she shouts back. He looks stricken as her words settle, and she feels a pain in her head unlike the usual, leaning against the wall that splits the laboratory and her room.

 

“I didn’t ask,” he mutters, gingerly grasping her arm to lead her to the bed.

 

“It’s not about you asking,” she responds. “It’s about looking after each other.” She drifts off into dreamless sleep when he lets go of her arm and she curls up against the plush she has with her. She dreams of the sun setting on the Martian landscape having a beautiful silver-red mixture of the night sky with the twin moons besides her champion. It’s a nice dream, one she can feel close to Vernage as she shares it with her.

 

_She feels an inexplicable fondness for this girl that she shares some of the memories she had thought long buried. No amount of reasoning could begin to get at how she feels for this girl, how she wishes she could do more for her. Misora Isurugi deserved answers, a peaceful existence, not to be brought into her business. It was clear that Fate put them together for a reason._

 

+

 

He doesn’t do ridiculous things that often, but he doesn’t stop them entirely. He works with her with the latest bottle system that Sento left them a notice for.

 

“Do you wanna go outside?” He asks once she’s out the booth. She gives him a look that he at least looks a little bit chastised. “Sorry, forgot you get tired.”

 

“Not about me, genius,” she says. “About you. Sento doesn’t want you outside with the whole fugitive thing.”

 

“We could wear disguises,” he shrugs. “You don’t get tired of this place?” She looks at him for a second, his eyes semi pleading with her. Even spending the last two years within the laboratory, she could feel his annoyance of being trapped in here. The difference is she still found time to sneak around when she was certain Soichi wasn’t around to yell at her for leaving, or Sento to worry. He has different restraints that her, like the fact that he’s a wanted criminal.  

 

“I have things,” she says, moving to her room to take out some of her own clothes, and something of Sento’s. Soichi’s hat is in the corner of the laboratory that she grabs on her way and tosses to Banjou while she switches her nightgown with something less noticeable.

 

“Let’s go,” Banjou says, his back turned to give her some privacy. She follows him up the stairs, making sure to cover her face with a bigger hat.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He takes her around the city, buys her some things because ‘she looks like she only has clothes for sleeping in.’ They get into a narrow altercation where she sees a group of teenagers notice and follow her around the mall. He grabs her hand, ducks into one of the first place, that happens to be a part karaoke place.

 

They eat in silence, which isn’t too bad. She thanks him for the gifts and he smiles at her. They spend time picking songs for the other to do, and then one of their own choosing and halfway through her first song, when she turns to point at him for the next part of the song that she sees the Martian landscape all around them.

 

He’s in obsidian and orange armor kneeling by her and she’s got a voluminous dress on, weighed with precious stones and a large headpiece atop her head. The rest of the kingdom is around her as steps to the raised platform to take her place. It’s the coronation ceremony, her mind supplies. This is the day that she was given the throne to the kingdom, where she presents her citizens a promise to do right by them. Her champion looks up at her - his face is covered, but she can feel the pride and smile through the mask he has on.

 

It’s gone in a second. Banjou tilts his head as she blinks back to the present, finishing her stanza quickly to halt the impending dizziness.

 

“What are you and Sento?” He asks when she sits down, takes a large gulp of water as he picks up the microphone. She barely restrains the choke that occurs, while Banjou doesn’t get up. She cuts him a look and wrinkles her nose at him.

 

“It’s not like that.”

 

“It’s not?” He questions. She’d think he sounded almost relieved from that, but she’s too distracted by the question and lightheadedness .

 

“We’re like family to each other” she says, looking him dead in the eye. Banjou is absolutely handsome, but she doesn’t know him besides his reckless impulsivity. He’s still trying to figure out how to fight without almost killing himself against Smash. His heart means well though.  

 

“Okay,” he says, smiling as he gets up to sing. She smiles back, delighted as he gets into the karaoke.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Sento brings a journalist with him another day; or rather, the lady brings herself to the café, calls herself a journalist and brings herself demanding to see the masked rider.

 

“How do you know that?” She retorts.

 

“I have sources,” the other woman says smugly. Misora dislikes her immensely, holding the broom defensively. “Hey, you’re that idol aren’t you?”

  
“What?”

 

“The idol that’s never seen! You only do streams on your own channel and no one ever sees you around. _Everyone_  at my work has seen you stream once.” Her face goes hot in a mixture of pride and embarrassment. She just scowls at her, raising the boom slightly.

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she scoffs. The lady gets a strange glint in her eye when she looks at her. “It is you!”

 

“You better not say anything about Sento or me,” she grabs her arm over the counter, broom to the lady’s throat. She gulps slightly, but she doesn’t seem phased.

 

“On my honor,” the lady says, rubbing at where she let her go. “Wow, you’re strong. I’m Sawa, by the way.”

 

 _‘She’s cunning,’ Vernage announces unbidden. ‘Straight out of the court’s training.’_   She clears her throat aloud, a noise for Vernage to take it as a sign to quiet in her head. Vernage scoffs a little, retreats as Sawa lingers around the counter, eyes taking in everything. 

 

Sawa, turns out, is a journalist for The Daily. She carries her laptop around with her, and spends time with her frequently. She doesn’t see her much at first to begin with, spending half of her day down under. She shows up in the laboratory unannounced one day, just as she’s getting out of the machine.

 

“What do you do?”

 

Sento says something unintelligible she barely catches it, stumbles as he runs towards the opening of the machine.

 

“Is she okay?” Sawa sounds distant to her ears.

 

+

 

She startles and Sawa jumps from the place she has by her bed. The book she’s reading falls to the floors, catching her attention as one of the older books from her shelf.

 

“What day is it?”

 

“Same day. You’ve been out for a few hours,” Sawa says, smoothing her skirt as she sits on the bed. “Are you okay?”

 

She nods slowly, leaning back when Sawa goes into her space to put her hand to her forehead.

 

“Let me,” she says firmly. She lets Sawa fret over her, because even though as much as she loves Sento and her dad, secretly, she’s glad there’s another woman. She’s direct, unlike Sento’s deliberate caginess when some of his calculations don’t go as planned or Soichi’s forgetfulness that strikes at the oddest times. There’s a flash of something else when that happens, her father doesn’t look like her dad - and she feels a rage that takes her out her body overwhelm her just not.

 

“You’re not sick, but is this normal?” She nods again. “Do you need me to get you something, food? Medicine? You’re not dying are you?” She can’t get around much, the lightheadedness that strikes her after sleeping for too long working its way. She manages to shake her head though, Sawa releasing a breath.

 

“Okay just stay here then,” Sawa says, grabbing her bag. “I’ll still get you something. I wanted to try this place and I’ll bring it from there.”  She struggles to sit up in her bed, looking around before Sawa rushes to help. It’s quiet tonight, Sento’s out looking for Smash with Banjou in tow, the computer program beeping to keep track of their locations. Inside, the entity seems to be quieter than the usual. It gets harder to keep track of the visions from the bottle process, because all she sees nowadays is a swirling tornado of red dust. She rubs the bracelet, waits for Sawa to come back.

 

It’s not long for her to come back, smells the Miso soup she brings along. She doesn’t know Sawa all that well, and normally she’d call her dad but he disappears for hours on end, he’s unreliable.

 

She doesn’t ask anything while she eats, tapping out on her computer. She thinks that she could like her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She’s strange though, even when she works with Sento down in the laboratory, she jumps a few feet in the air when she comes in. Sawa’s a kind friend to her, but there’s a prickling sensation she gets around her.

 

She gives her an odd look as the older woman rushes out.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She finds it by accident, not intending anything. Sawa, for as kind as she is, seems like she’s been holding back - what it is, she’s not sure of. They let her into their home, and she comes with valuable intel and classified documents for Sento’s rider program.

 

She’s moving things for her Miitan stream when she bumps into the desk accidentally. The corner jabs at her side that she groans at, looking down to the offending article of furniture. She sees a blink from the side of the processor, hidden by the fact that it’s in the back and drops the box in her hands to look at it further.

 

She doesn’t tell Sento about it yet.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Sawa comes back like expected, making a racket when she’s in her room and reading in one of the rarer times she can summon the energy for.

 

“What are you looking for?”

 

Sawa startles, looks at her with a smile as her hands close around her hands.

 

“Nothing, just. Ring that went missing,” she says, holding up a ring. She nods, watches as Sawa sets herself by the desk with her laptop.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She confesses a lot faster than she imagined. Being turned into a Smash would probably do it to you and she feels herself feeling worry when she hears it from Sento as he rushes out. They come back, Sawa more tired but holding her necklace. “They made… I was a spy. I didn’t choose this but I did record meetings and I think they’re out to hurt you,” she says to Sento, a recording playing. She bends a little to put the recording piece under her foot to crush it, watching as Sawa gives her a nod in silence.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_“Compassion. It’s not in my nature.”_

 

“It’s in mine though. Sawa lied, but she didn’t choose to be a spy. You saw how worried she was when she told us, that they had her dad.”

 

Vernage makes an annoyed noise in her head but quiets down anyway, muttering in distaste. _Humans._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Vernage, above all else, is a prideful being. She’s something like a friend, and something like a mentor. She’s not really here - it’s her spirit. The entity is not really an entity but more like a lost disembodied spirit anchored to her by the bracelet. Why she chose her is another question for a different day, but Vernage’s spirit and memories live within her. There are memories she has that aren’t normal memories, or even memories related to this plane of existence. When she ventures out late at night to look up at the stars, her eyes trick her, making her think they’re far bigger and closer to her. Mars’ solar system bleeds into her vision. Vernage shows her dreams of a world soaked in color, buildings that reached for the sky of twin moons. _This was a dynasty. It was her home._

 

 

* * *

 

 

One of Sawa’s many inexplicable skills is her ability to find just about anything. There is nothing she can’t uncover that she hasn’t found out. When she showed up at Nascita, Misora did her own searching on her. She’d been proclaimed as a rising journalist, who had a way with words and had an eerie knack for following a thread to a larger story.  

 

She’s very candid with her, about the time lost and the memory gaps. Sawa snaps her eyes from the laptop to Misora when she tells her about it and stares.

  
“What do you mean what you see?”

 

“I see the end of the world,” she says as Sawa inhales. She taps at her laptop with her knuckles before clicking many times, looks up at her.

 

“Tell me everything, maybe I can help.” Vernage is quieter but listens as she tells Sawa the condensed version of everything that’s happened to her since the first day she passed out. It’s days before she comes back with anything, shakes her head as she holds a bag of what look like Udon noodles and her handbag to her to see.

 

“Everything classified has been destroyed. There’s absolutely nothing on it. But I did find some things from less than reputable sources,” she grimaces as she sits down, passing the noodles to her as she pulls a folder from her purse. “The conspiracy sites after the Sky Wall went up. They claim some ancient writing found from a section of the Skywall foretold the Martian Queen’s arrival to Earth but that’s it. Everything else gets into weird translations. Sorry that I couldn’t be of more help.”

 

She takes the folder from her, leans over to hug her. Sawa stills for a moment before she hugs her back.

 

“Thank you so much,” Misora says. Sawa squeezes her back in return, pulling from her with a rapid blinking of her eyes that are misty eyed. “Do you think I can ask for another favor?”

 

“Yeah, of course,” Sawa says.

 

“I don’t know anything about my mom and I want to find out about her. I don’t have a name or anything, but if you could help me I’d appreciate it.” Sawa nods as she takes out her phone quickly, taps at lightning speed everything she says.

 

“I’ll see what I can find, let’s eat though,” Sawa says, a bright smile crossing her face as she passes her one of noodle containers to her.

 

+

 

She has to come accept the visions as a recurring part of her life. They happen so frequently, she’s got a system of how to deal with them and not pass out onto the stairs. They stopped making bottles now that Sento has enough, they’ve made as much combinations as they could have. It’s more of having to deal with visions that come unbidden to her outside of the bottles that trips her up. She wants Vernage out of her.

 

But, Vernage protects her.

 

In late hours of the night when she can’t quite go to sleep but she has no energy to go upstairs, she lies in bed. Vernage speaks to her and tells her everything she can remember. Her own memories are limited to before the Sky Wall incident and the bracelet, but she can feel something at the edge of her mind wanting to get out.

 

_“There is something coming, something I cannot be prepared for until it passes. You must be prepared for it too, child."_

 

“If you don’t know, and I don’t know, then how are we supposed to do anything.”

 

 _“By staying vigilant.”_ She exhales, punches her pillow slightly. For all the good that’ll do, she’s woefully underprepared and has an old Martian queen living inside of her that stays far more quiet than she should and only speaks up for minor issues. She doesn’t have foresight for that something coming. She sighs, turning back to the ceiling to count herself to sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first sucker punch is Soichi is not her dad. He is, but he isn’t. Another imposter wearing the face of her daughter. Evolt, Sento tells her, is his name. He’s been using her dad for who knows how long. She doesn’t know if they would have told her to begin with, because she only knew because she was worried for Banjou and Sento and what they were doing so late at night with the enforced curfew and martial law. She follows them, hears the reveal and every worst fear she had when she looked at her dad and he looked back strangely haunts her. It feels like she’s been cut open and left to the elements, a piece of her taken out, because her father wasn’t _her father_.

 

_“He must answer for his treachery,” Vernage says. “I let him live once as an act of mercy, clearly mistaken because Evolt still lives while I paid for it with my life and the life of all Martians. You and I must bring an end to him.”_

 

“I don’t want to,” she says, face in hands. “What can I do anyway? Your power runs out. I can barely stay standing after you leave. He’s my dad,” her voice breaks, pressing her hands onto her eyes as the tears prick at the edge.

 

_“We will figure it out. Every second he still remains on this planet is a threat to us.”_

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The second is that the events that have lead up to the prime ministers pitting their own riders against each other for control of the country is that she has been helping all along. The bottle purification was never meant to occur, because all of them were to bring about the end. Vernage rages in her mind at that one, angered at being played the fool. She feels lightheaded again, distressed that she helped cause this. Everything that had occured ever since Banjou joined them was her and Sento’s doing.

 

Her blood runs cold hearing their fight, thinking on her actions for the last year. She had begun this war and she had helped more than willingly.

 

She’s spent a good portion of her life asleep, it’s the first time she’s felt feels awake in a long time.

 

A part of her feels so stupid - that if she spent more time awake, she could have known about Soichi and Sawa, about the bottles. If she were just a little bit stronger, she wouldn’t have fallen into the coma. If she weren’t asleep for so long, maybe she could have prevented the future, been aware that the people she loved were lying to her.

 

She’s tired of sleep but she has no idea of what to do with herself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Sento gives her a killswitch to the rider suit and she throws it immediately after. It’s not fair, nothing is fair, Sento isn’t allowed to kill himself when she just lost her father. Banjou is ready to die any minute. None of it is _right_ , she is so tired of being in the after of everything.

 

 _“We cannot let him die,”_ Vernage states as she kicks the trigger for emphasis again before moving to pick it up. _She can feel her strength waning with every bottle they continue to purify, knowing they’re close to finishing all of them. She needs to save what she can to aid this rider who will help her banish Evolt._

 

“I don’t know how to stop him. He’s such a goddamned hero,” she says, falling onto the stool. She wants everything to go back to before, would rather take her coma back than live through this fight. She picks up the trigger and calls Sawa because if she is being made to sit through this she’ll have to have someone with her to hold her.

 

Sawa comes in shortly after, looking at the distressed look on her face and down to the trigger in her hands she’s been turning over and grabs it from her.

 

Sawa and her go to the proxy match, because she cannot bear to do this alone. She disappears for a bit, her own hands holding a death grip on the railing as Sento pummels Grease. He’s not the same rider he was at the beginning - he’d gotten stronger, naturally. But this frenzied version of him worries her. He told her that it was dangerous and he’d still done it and she was the insurance to make sure he didn’t do something he would regret.

 

She hates him for a little for that, putting something like that on her. Banjou’s yell joins her as she screams when Grease goes down and Sento follows him, like he intends to throw him off the edge. She turns to see him transform, watches him rush into the area to save Grease and stop Banjou. Sawa holds onto her, the trigger shoved deeper into her coat pocket as Banjou is able to bring him back from the edge.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sento, Banjou and Kazumi keep going out to fight against for Touto. The prime ministers keep setting up best of three matches, pitting them all against the few remain riders from the other regions. Her father - Evolt - fights them as well, still wears the face of her father. It pains her, to know that the man who’s been her dad hasn’t been her dad in so long. The family she thought she had feels defaced.

 

Night Rogue calls them out as well, launches a surprise attack against them. She is overwhelmed with rage, an unusual feeling as she feels her memories go hazy. She watches her body teleport to the site they were lured, saves the three of them from Rogue and Evolt. No rider can die while she works to gather and conserve the last of her energy to banish Evolt from this world.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sawa lies again and she is so tired of the deceit from everyone. She’s not mad that she lied again, she’s mad that Sawa didn’t tell them the whole truth. That was a child of Nanba and that she was trying to buy time to rescue Nabeshima’s children. When she slaps her, it’s because of the lack of faith Sawa has in them that she’d think they’d turn on her before she hugs her.

 

“You still matter to me,” Misora whispers into her ear as she holds her. Sawa tightens her grip, lets out a choked noise while her hair grows slightly damp at tears she releases. Her own eyes have become wet as well, rubbing at them. She drives them back to Nascita, the two of them walking slower behind the boys.

 

“I found your mother, by the way,” she says as they near the entrance. She turns to Sawa. “She didn’t want to be found, so she changed her name. But I found it her and she’s still in Touto.” She slides a piece of paper into her pocket as she walks ahead.

 

+

 

 _“I trusted Evolt once, I hope your faith in your friend is rightfully placed,”_ Vernage says as she turns over the sheet of paper in her bed one night: Haruka Minami.

 

“You never said anything about what Evolt did.”

 

_“He was a foreigner. Not of the Martians. I brought him into my kingdom to foster connections between our planets and instead, I bought a virus into my home. I believed him to have good intentions. I was barely able to stop him, separating him from his body. It didn’t do much good if he’s in your planet now.”_

 

“How are we going to stop him then?”

 

 _“I’m still figuring it out. Rest child, for you are going to see your mother in the morning. Leave Evolt to me and the Riders. We’ll figure something out.”_ She makes a noise of agreement and tries to will herself to sleep.

 

“Hey Vernage, why did you pick me? You had some choice in picking who held you, why me?”

 

_“Fate, Misora Isurugi. It was fate that brought us together.” The girl rests for the morning, tossing and turning through the night. Her own restlessness bubbles into her while she resides with her. Her sorrow permeates their being despite her unconsciousness. Misora is so much stronger than she ever credits herself. She shares with her a memory of her in her gardens as a child, the time when the flowers bloomed all around her to ease her worries. Misora settles into less fitful sleep._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Sawa drives her to a place by the water. It’s a small house, painted brown and white. For some reason, she imagined something more colorful. It’s secluded enough that they get lost on the way there, but they still find their way. She gets out of the car, stands and tugs at the bracelet on her wrist.

 

The sound of the other car door slamming shut startles her, turning to see as Sawa joins her and offers her hand. They walk to the door together. In the distance, they hear another door shut. Presumably, it’s from inside the house. She falters a little, holding onto Sawa’s hand as she steels herself. ‘Vernage,’ she speaks to her in her own mind. Steeling herself in the driveway, she shakes her shoulders a bit. ‘If you’re there. I need you with me. I don’t think I can do this without you.’

 

_“Hold your head high, Misora. You will find the answers you seek.”_

 

Sawa squeezes her hand. She walks towards the door, Sawa by her side and Vernage in her mind to give her the strength she needs to knock on the door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The woman opens her door, like she’s expecting someone. She leans back, leveling a firm glare at Sawa and her. She looks at her, tries to see any similarities between her and Haruka; her eyes and hair are lighter than hers. Her hair is tied back, bangs swept to the side. She’s not that much taller than her, maybe two inches or so. The crinkling around her eyes makes her look older but she can’t be older by that much. Probably around her father’s age, she thinks.

 

“You’re not with those officials,” she says, holding her door before she turns. “I’m not interested.”

 

“Wait,” Sawa shouts, moving to her other side as she jams the almost closed door with her foot. “We just want to talk.” She nods to her, snapping her out of her trying to make connections between them. She means to say ‘did you know a man named Soichi Isurugi?’ but what comes out is “Why haven’t you evacuated?”

 

“I was born here, I will die here. No matter what they say about handling the wall, it’s only ever going to end in one way: with that thing destroyed.”

 

“Did you know a man named Soichi?” She asks next. Sawa turns back to her. The woman drops what she’s doing and goes back to the door. She doesn’t look like she recognizes her and it makes her blood run cold, a ringing in her ear that blocks everything else out..

 

“How do you know that name? Are you journalists?”

 

“I’m his daughter,” she says. Haruka holds a hand to her mouth as she steps back.

 

“Misora?”

  
“I am,” Sawa supplies. “To answer your journalist question. She’s Misora. But that’s not why we’re here. Can we come in, please?”  

 

The woman gives them a look before she nods. Misora sucks in a breath as they both steps over the threshold.

 

“But how?” Haruka asks when they’re in, closing the door behind her. “How are you here? You were in that coma. He told me about it when I heard about the accident and went to the hospital.”

 

“How?” She asks.

 

“I remembered about your school. Even though I left and they had put him on the mission to Mars, you were with a friend of ours when it happened.”

 

“You didn’t bother to check up on me?” Anger rises inside. “I was in a coma and you - what, you left me there? Didn’t bother to check on me afterward?” She feels her skin get hot, feels embarrassed about crying in front of this woman who should be her mother but left instead.

 

“Your father thought I was crazy. I thought I was too and I left. And then he came back, just after they put you in the hospital and I had been in the area. He wasn’t the same, so I stayed away.”

 

“Why did you stay away?” She blinks the tears away.

 

“I went to a shaman once. Just in the neighborhood and what she told me scared me. She said she couldn’t see your future without seeing darkness involved, that something bad would happen to you. I was so scared,” Haruka’s eyes are misty, rubs at the corners to stop tears. “I didn’t know what else to do so I ran. And then I heard you went into that coma and I was just so scared about what had happened to you, about what this wall and the Mars program had done to you both.”

 

She wipes with the back of her hand, Haruka coming closer to wrap her in a hug. It’s a little bit awkward and not like the hugs she shares with Sawa’s. Still, she allows her to come closer.

 

“I’m glad you’re okay though,” she says to her, burying her face into her arm. She allows herself to cry again, holds onto her as if she’ll disappear.

 

+

 

Sawa stops by the hospital so they can check on her dad. The doctors aren’t sure when he’ll wake up, the steady beeping the only noise in the room. She leaves her for a bit to go to the cafeteria, leaving her with Vernage.

 _“This ends with us,” Vernage says to her._  She’s been awfully quiet ever since she met Haruka, but she’s been present in that she knows Vernage has been remembering her old life, times when she would spar with the members of her royal guard. She’s been preparing for Evolt.

 

_“The riders can defeat him, but not by themselves. We must go and end what I thought I finished on Mars.”_

 

“If we do this, what’ll happen to you?”

 

_“I’ll disappear. Like I was supposed to. This place isn’t my home.”_

 

“Did you know? About the shaman and the warning?”

 

_“No. And then yes. What happened on Mars was unintentional, but in the case that something were to happen to me, I had a failsafe where part of me would go into this bracelet. The bracelet chose you because it thought you were a worthy host.”_

 

“I don’t want you to go.”

 

_“Would that I could end this differently but we both know what has to be done. If you want to see your friends and your world survive, you must help me do this.”_

 

_She can feel Misora fold her hands across her lap, mind preoccupied with her friends and father. She doesn’t have enough power left in her to do much, but she knows it’s enough to drive Evolt out. There’s not a lot of time she has left._

 

+

 

Sento, Banjou, Kazumi and Gentoku go to the abandoned warehouse Evolt calls them too. Sawa holds her phone up to her as she exits the hospital room.

 

“What?”

 

“Bugged the cellphone. Not for spying, but you know they try to not make us worry,” she says.

 

“We need to go there now,” Misora says as she nods, the two of them rushing down the hallway towards the stairs.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Sawa’s driving skills are unparalleled, but the empty Touto streets probably contribute in how she pushes 120 kilometers to the warehouse. The strike of metal against metal deep within signals all of the riders inside. Sawa’s brakes screech to a halt, barely parking before she throws open the door and runs inside.

 

As they near, she sees Banjou on the floor, the bright orange and black capturing her attention. Following after, Evolt swats Gentoku and Kazumi with a gesture of his hands. She searches for the bright white of Sento’s suit, watches as Evolt motions for a pipe from the other side with his hand; it flies to his hands easily, raising it as Sento’s back is turned to him.

 

She screams, watching as they turn to her and Evolt’s laugh reverberates through the warehouse. Sawa grasps onto her arm, shaking her off instead. She rushes forwards, feels the tightening of the bracelet on her wrist and feels the world fall away from her.

 

Her own hands reach out, wind coming from them as she screams. She can feel her own consciousness move back as Vernage steps forward, feeling a surge of power through her.

 

 _“I have this from here,”_ she speaks to Misora as she takes control of her body, channeling the last of her energy into one pulse.

 

The others stand to watch as she fights Evolt; her eyes are green and sand kicks up in her wake. They have known of Vernage and the bracelet, but they never understood the connection between the two of them. The Martians and the Pandora Box they had the vaguest ideas of, and Evolt from his unending monologues because he always had a flair of dramatic antics. What they didn’t understand is that she, Vernage, had known of a time when her world was going to end - when she put two and two together that the foreigner introduced into her kingdom had slipped into the quarters of her guard and slaughtered them one by one while he set his tower up. She had seen him take the life of her most loyal guard in front of her, and then enter him and go through the remaining guard. She had known that by the time the tower could have been undone it would have been far later.

 

She was here to finish righting the wrong he’d done to her. And Misora was her chosen vessel, not out of some preordained sense of business, but because her curiosity and her spirit reminded her of her own when she was just a princess in train.

 

“You had a place at my side,” she shouts. “I would have shared with you Martian advancements and we could have awoken the cosmos together.” A glittering sword of obsidian swirls in between her hands, knowing very well that this sword is the only thing between total destruction and their salvation. She rushes towards Evolt, the wind she has keeping him distracted for just a fraction second.

 

He meets her sword with bursts of energy from his hands. Her sword was forged from the core of Mars, resistant to everything. She blocks the bursts with ease, blinking into the area beside him and swinging her sword into his torso. Her sword pierces into the armor, breaking off parts. He pulls a weapon out from the air, a sword finally connecting with her own. She swings and parries, able to guess his next move. They sparred briefly when he had been a guest, the memory coming back. It was far different remembering the gentle sparring from this frenzied fight.

 

“I never wanted your power,” Evolt says in turn. “I just wanted to see your kingdom burn.”

 

“Then you’ll burn too,” she says, blinking from one side to another, thrusting her sword into the other section of his torso. She blinks away from his swing at her, watches as immediately after the other riders follow suit. The one called Night Rogue rushes at him, Banjou following suit. The Grease rider runs back to check on Sento and she brings her sword up. They’re able to block him better, chip at what she had begun. If she stays with Misora, it’s a possibility she can die too. Misora is loved. She feels it in her interactions with the others, with Sawa especially. There’s only one thing she can do left.

 

“Out of my way,” she yells as Banjou and Rogue are able to swing into Evolt simultaneously from behind, Sento and Grease flanking him from the front. He is thrown on the floor, just barely held down.

 

“Now we're both relics of a world gone by. I won’t let you finish this planet what you did to mine,” she says. Within her consciousness, Misora watches. She speaks telepathically.

 

_“I need you to do one last thing for me, and drive this sword into him. You would have made a fine queen, Misora, if only we met under better circumstances.”_

 

“I’m glad I knew you, Vernage.”

 

She detaches herself from Misora, feels the energy deplete as she directs herself into the sword. Misora brings the sword down into Evolt as Vernage goes for the essence of his being and takes it with her, an explosion of green and gold signaling the end.

 

+

 

“She’s collapsed,” she hears. The world swims all around her, voices coming in and out like a frequency being cut. “Get out of the way, now!” Sento yells. She’s so tired, she wants to go back to the gardens of Vernage’s kingdom, feel the too hot sun on her. It’s empty in her head though, and all she has are faded memories. She closes her eyes, feels the ground moving under her.

 

+

 

The Sky Wall and the Tower come crashing down. They leave behind destruction, but the only good part is that the areas closer to the site of the area had been evacuated long before it came down. She had only been asleep for a day, catches the broadcast in the middle of the café and hears the clattering as Sawa yelps, brushing past Kazumi to see her.

 

“You’re awake?” She says, holding her hands as she helps her sit up. “Are you okay?”

 

“I don’t remember anything except Vernage and Evolt in that warehouse. Are the others okay? Where’s Sento and Banjou?” Panic rises into her voice

 

“You saved our lives,” Kazumi says to her. “They’re… somewhere. I think they’re talking to what remains of the prime minister’s cabinet.”

 

“But are you okay?” Sawa says.

 

“She’s gone,” she says, leaning forward into a hug her. “She did it to save me.”

 

Sawa wraps her arms around her, holds her as she feels her own heart break at the fact that there was no other person with her in her head. It’s the first time she can feel herself be alone in mind for years.

 

+

 

The sound of the ocean crashes on the shore, the faint sound of a few seagulls. It’s just her, Banjou, Kazumi, Sawa, Gentoku and Sento around a bonfire, the crackling noise of wood breaking soft as the boys yell and jeer at one another. The sun is setting, the sky bleeding from orange to the blackness of the night sky. Her head is so quiet, she never realized how much Vernage had a space with her. She misses her dearly, even her slight derision towards human because it felt in some ways, like Vernage had been like a mother and a sister, guiding her in strange ways.

 

It’s a silly thing to feel but she keeps the bracelet still, the cool metal different from the warmth it emitted when Vernage was with her. She can’t bear to give it up.

 

“Do you think she went back to Mars?” Sawa asks, placing the blanket she brought around the two of them.

 

“I hope she did,” she says, rests her head on her shoulder to look up at the sky.


End file.
